This invention relates to an improved process for manufacturing soluble organic calcium complexes, usable particularly as additives improving the combustion of liquid fuels. It also relates to the complexes obtained by this process and their uses.
The combustion of liquid hydrocarbons such as, for example, gas oil, heating oil, light fuels, heavy fuels or kerosine oil, leads, even under the best possible economic conditions, to a more or less substantial amount of solid, liquid or gaseous unburned substances, such as, for example, soot, cracked hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide as well as nitrogen oxides. These unburned materials have as main disadvantages to decrease the yield of the power plants (fuel oil burners, Diesel engines, etc), due to a loss of combustible material and to the formation of deposits (particularly soot) on the heat exchangers, which results in a decrease of the heat transfer coefficients, and to produce injurious fumes which must be reduced as much as possible. In an attempt to obviate these disadvantages, soluble organic iron, calcium or barium compounds are generally added to the liquid fuels (for example gas oil or fuel oil), in order to inhibit the production of fumes or at least to reduce the amount thereof. These compounds operate by catalytic effect to improve the combustion of the fuels and reduce the weight of the solid combustion residues.